The Calligrapher's Daughter (32 page)

“When I returned to Pyeongyang after meeting your family, I immediately spoke to my father.” He chuckled. “My father has long awaited this day. I’m afraid I’ve tested his patience for quite some time. He was very pleased to hear of my intentions and suggested I ask my sponsor if he knew of a school that would accept you for graduate work.”

It was terribly forward, but I had to ask, “In America?” I grasped a peach and rubbed its fuzz vigorously to mask my shaking hands.

“Yes.” Calvin slid off the rock and crouched before me. I concentrated on the peaches. “Dr. Sherwood said American colleges have different requirements than ours, and that you’d need to enroll in a premedical
course of study: biology, chemistry, anatomy, that sort of thing. There’s a women’s college, called Goucher, in Baltimore on the East Coast, that’s hosted émigré students from China. He knows several people there and has written to them on our behalf.” Calvin spoke faster. “I—I’d like to take you to America as my wife. I know it’s sudden and an unusual request of a new bride, but your mother says it’s your dream and I—I couldn’t imagine waiting for my return to marry.”

My hands still, I looked at him at last. His features shone with excitement, his eyes round and earnest. I bowed my head, overcome.

“Please— I don’t mean to give you false ideas.” He leaned forward. “Dr. Sherwood encouraged me heartily in this. He said he was sure it would merely be a matter of a few letters and some minor formalities, particularly since—well, your mother told me you were second in your class, that you minored in nursing and you’ve been practicing midwifery. Will you consider it? We have much to accomplish by the end of the summer and I know it’s sudden but can you, do you—” He stopped and bent his head a moment, as if to slow his tumbling words. “What do you think?”

I clasped the peaches in my lap and looked at him clear-eyed. “Yes, if you please.” My voice, which I’d always heard inside as being low and scratchy, sounded bell-like in clarity.

He exclaimed relief and sat backward, laughing as he caught himself from tumbling off the rock.

I half stood as if to catch him, and instead caught the peaches rolling from my lap. “I never considered, I never really believed it could happen.”

“God is good.”

“Amen.” I studied my ring, which now seemed laden with an enormity of hope I hadn’t known possible. The peaches felt round and full in my hands and I offered him one.

“Wonderful.” He clasped my hand around the peach. His cool palm pressed my fingers against the polished skin of the soft fruit, and I flushed to my toes.

“We have much to do. Can you send me your transcripts and list all the employment you’ve had? Most impressive will be the jobs you’ve had with missionaries. Yes, your mother told me quite a lot about you. You must ask your missionary friends for a recommendation. That’s a letter
they write describing your character and work. I know it’s strange, but you must lose all modesty in these matters. It’s important to boast about yourself if you want to be accepted into an American college. Modest pride will not serve you in this endeavor. You’ll have to apply for a passport. I wish I knew someone in Gaeseong— Well, I’ll ask my friend if he can help.”

To answer my puzzled look he said, “I have an old classmate, a Japanese man who works in the police department in Pennamdo in Pyeongyang. He’s been very helpful with my passport application. But we can address that later. Once your college admission is settled, we can set a wedding date for sometime this summer.”

“You’ve done so much.” I kept my head low not knowing where to point my eyes, directed as they were east to America! I saw in the reflection of his shined black shoes that he gripped the peach, but it seemed to spin like a top he’d set whirling with his repeated words—
our
and
we
—its wind spreading my life before me in impossibly new ways. What would Jaeyun say!

“I expect the date may change, but at this point, I’m planning to depart on my birthday—the seventeenth day of the ninth month—”

“That’s mine!”

“It isn’t!”

“It is! By the farmer’s calendar in 1910.”

“The same for me, in 1909. Yah, praise God. We were destined.” His chin shook with emotion and he clasped both my hands. The simple gesture, imbued with intimacy, stirred me deep inside, suffusing heat and humiliation that crested in tears.

I pushed him away. “I’m sorry.”

Confusion flickered through his eyes. “Please don’t be upset.”

“It’s not upset. I’m overcome.”

“I too.” He walked to the edge of the overlook and gazed afar. Momentarily he said, “We’ll be married before our birthday in September, then.” His forthrightness made me laugh when he added, “Had we been more traditional, we would have known sooner about our birthday from a matchmaker.”

I thought that his birth in the Year of the Rooster was a good sign, a natural-born leader, proud and forward thinking. It would be easy to
follow such footsteps, especially as they would cross the ocean! I remembered the classic poem my father had quoted to welcome me home, and considering Mr. Cho’s birth year, saw it now as an omen:
The way home is a thousand li; an autumn night is even longer. / Ten times already I have been home, but the cock has not yet crowed.

Calvin said, “My father will marry us at West Gate Church. It doesn’t matter that your family is Methodist and mine Presbyterian. Your parents were agreeable on that aspect. Your mother actually said that my course of study in different seminaries should eventually prove if it mattered or not. She’s remarkable!” He reached for my hand. “And her daughter is just as remarkable.”

His palm felt cool, dry and serene. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say nothing. Say you’ll be my wife! Say you’ll come to America with me!”

I laughed with his exuberance, only remembering to cover my mouth at the end.

He opened his arms wide to the sea. “Nothing would make me happier than having you beside me on a steamer bound for Los Angeles.”

This new sentimental language of affection he freely used felt too foreign for me, but his expressiveness brought me to my feet. The peach slipped from my lap, rolled into a crevice in the rock and dropped out of reach, smashing in a gorgeous display of orange and pink broken flesh. I said nothing, but Calvin saw and offered me his. “Too bad. Have this. What’s mine is now yours.”

I pushed it gently back to him. “What’s mine is now yours.” He smiled just the way I hoped he would. Surprised by my own boldness, I turned to the view. I could clearly see the curve of the horizon and wanted just then to be immersed in those waves whose same waters lapped on the shores of my future.

For a time, we remarked on the beauty of the water and the sky—those expansive forms in nature the only vessels large enough to contain our unspoken feelings. When the sea began to darken in the descending sun, I packed the picnic things and said we should go—he’d miss his train.

I followed him down the trail. He carried everything and I no longer minded.

JAEYUN GAVE ME THE DARK BLUE CHINESE DRESS AS AN ENGAGEMENT gift when we parted at the train station early Sunday morning. She looked soft and fragile. I said to her, “Don’t decide anything yet, promise?” She’d told me that Dr. Murayama had urged her to break with her family, knowing he’d be drafted for military medical service when his residency ended in a year. I released my friend’s hands and used my eyes to plead. My own heart, touched as it was by Calvin Cho, felt in turmoil. “Anything can happen. At least come home and see your parents before you decide.”

“Maybe.” Jaeyun turned away. “Back to work!” she said brightly and waved goodbye.

On the train home, I tried to find the word for how different I felt.
Womanly
came to mind. On the sturdy wooden benches in second class, which were half filled, I jostled with the train, bouncing heavily on uneven tracks. All the windows were open and I held a handkerchief to my nose against the fumes. Through the smoke and dawn mist I saw pines clinging stubbornly to the sides of a mountain pass, and I spontaneously prayed for Jaeyun and gave thanks for Calvin and all the possibilities he’d brought. A vision of his tidy hands holding the peach made me shiver. I let my mind play back the seaside afternoon and rubbed my fingers together to feel the ring.

In Gaeseong I walked home in a reverie brought on by thoughts of my betrothal and the echo of the clacking train. Turning the corner to climb the hill toward home, I saw an unusual sight: Byungjo standing guard over a dusty black automobile outside our gate, surrounded by boys and some passersby attempting to touch it and peer into its windows. As I neared, he called, “Hello, Ahsee!” and importantly shooed the curious away from the sedan.

Inside the gate my mother greeted me hastily and said I should attend the American visitors waiting for Father, who had gone to town. “I think they want something to do with you. They actually asked if this was
your
house! I couldn’t really tell—their Japanese is dreadful and their Korean is worse. Aigu! Where’s Father? I’m getting them water. Too bad we have no ice. Quickly! He’s a minister!”

I dropped my bundle in my room and hurried to Father’s sitting room, brushing my clothes and straightening my shoulders. A bent pink-faced man with a clerical collar paced the room, and a fair woman dressed in a loose beige suit with narrow features and a distinctive nose sat squarely on Father’s dinner table. When I bowed, the woman stood—a full head or more taller than me—and the minister bowed awkwardly. I said in Japanese, “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. My father should return at any moment. Please have refreshment?”

“Thank you, no. The lady already, uh, get water,” said the man, bowing again.

“Please excuse me a moment.” I watched the tall woman seat herself once more on Father’s low table, whose spindly legs I feared would collapse. “I’ll bring you something more comfortable to sit on.”

“What’s that? Can you speaking slow?”

I tried again using the English word for chair.

“No, no need. We can’t stay greatly. Our child he waiting home.”

The woman said, “You speak English?” She paled even whiter and put one hand to her collar and the other to her lips.

“No, only a nittle.” I switched back to Japanese. “Excuse me. Not enough to converse.”

“Same as my Japanese good.” The man smiled and made his funny bow. I’d thought from his light-colored thinning hair that he was very old, but his few wrinkles and energetic pacing exposed his youth. His eyebrows were blond, almost unnoticeable. I’d never before seen such a pink man. “My name is Reverend Harold Bennett and this is my wife, Mrs. Edna Bennett. Are you the Miss Han, the fiancée of Calvin Cho, uh, of the younger Reverend Cho?”

Startled, I felt my cheeks warm. I had seen Calvin just three days ago. “Yes, but how—?”

“We know Dr. Sherwood yesterday in Pyeongyang, er, Reverend Sherwood. He give us your joyful marry news. My goodness! Blessings, my dear!” he exclaimed in English. “We stay house of Sherwood two weeks to get, um, used to living.” Through an amusing mix of Japanese, Korean, English and hand signs, I learned that they had recently come from America to pastor a new Presbyterian church in Gaeseong. Calvin must have rushed home and told his mentor everything, who in turn told the Bennetts. In the sedan that belonged to the Pyeongyang Presbyterian Mission, borrowed for some extenuating circumstance I couldn’t grasp, they’d driven down this morning, and after stopping at the manse, had spent an hour trying to locate our house. They had a small son waiting at home with a nanny and were eager to leave. Mother brought water, apologizing for the lack of ice, and a bowl of plums from our tree, which I knew would be as hard as wood.

Everyone bowed again. Reverend Bennett asked in his funny language if this was my mother, and I understood that he originally thought she was a servant. For the first time in my life I faced the impossible situation of introducing my mother. Clearly these foreigners, esteemed as they were, knew little of our customs. In addition, I acutely felt the impropriety of receiving guests, not only in lieu of Father but in his very sitting room!
Fortunately, Mother bowed and said, “Yes, Reverend, this person is Najin’s mother,” easing the discomfort.

“I’ll get something for Mrs. Bennett to sit on,” I said to Mother in Korean.

“No! You stay!” Mother almost ran off.

“Miss Han,” said Mrs. Bennett, coming forward to take my hand. “Reverend Sherwood talk you teach Korean and Japanese. We also job, uh, new house.”

My face showed nothing other than my lit eyes. “I’ll have to speak to my father, but I’m overcome by your thoughtfulness. Thank you!” I was anxious enough wondering how Father had reacted to Calvin’s proposal and our future plans, and had no idea what he’d say to this added development.

“Dr. Sherwood talks, uh, good wages and help papers to American college. My goodness! You come highly recommended, my dear, highly recommended,” he ended in English.

I bowed again, surprised and pleased. Mother brought a stool with a cushion on top and gestured that Mrs. Bennett should sit. When Mrs. Bennett did so, she glanced at where she had previously sat and realized her gaffe. “Oh! I’m so sorry!” she said in English. “Please forgive me, I have—” She turned and whispered something to me. When I smiled politely, uncomprehending, she tried in Japanese, “Baby sick morning. Automobile is bad, large bad.”

I waved my hands in understanding and gestured a swollen belly. When both the guests said, “My goodness, yes!” I said I had something that could help and hurried to the kitchen.

“But wait— We really going now. Sick not, really—”

I heard Mother saying how honored we were to receive an American minister and his wife, how sorry she was that the man of the house was out, how pleased he’d be to meet them, wouldn’t they like a plum, and naturally they must stay for supper. I returned soon with a chamomile and ginger infusion. The Bennetts and my mother were smiling awkwardly at each other. “Please sip this. It’s completely safe for the baby.”

The Bennetts exchanged a few hurried words and Mother interrupted, gesturing a calm stomach. “Please excuse me, Reverend sir, my daughter
graduated with excellence from Ewha in nursing as well as education, and also is a skilled midwife. Try just a little. See how it tastes.” My eyes opened wide at my mother’s proud and enthusiastic description of me.